Grand prize winner in the famous last words category: "I'm never doing this many again" said by Miss Snark on 1/1/2006. I'm saying them again now. This time I really really mean it.

We'll probably do some version of the COM again but I just can't do this many again ever. Considering we've done almost nothing BUT this crapometer for a solid month, I'm sure no one will object to getting back to business!

29 comments:

I have learned more from following the Crapometer for the last month than I have learned....well, ever. I've learned what needs to be chopped out of my own writing. I'm beginning to figure out how to make my work more interesting.

I do hope once we've all recovered that we can do this again. On a smaller scale of course! I was too chicken to make an entry but I think in a few months I'll be ready to face evisceration!

Impressive...most impressive. You have gone where no agent has gone before. As my little twins are fond of saying to one another. "Me winner! Ha-ha, you lose." Perhaps we should make some kind of an award for agents who perform such outlandish stunts as these? The Golden Gin Pail? Somehow, I imagine Miss Snark making some sort of on-stage spectacle of herself accepting an award like this. Could we expect less? I would be disappointed if she didn't.

The Crap 'o meter is like that painting of Kramer from "Seinfeld." The well-heeled couple who buy it say, "It is repulsive, and yet, I can not look away."

I kept deleting Miss Snark's website from my "favorites" queue and then adding it back again a few days later. I'd get fed up and then go right back for more. It was infuriating, enlightening, in short....snarktastic. Cheers.

Yes indeed, kudos to Miss Snark, plus a golden--no, make that platinum--gin pail and a lifetime supply of gin to keep it filled. I'd say she also deserves a smack upside the head for attempting such a gargantuan task as the HH Crapometer, but I think she's already gotten that. In spades.

I must be a loon too, because I also liked #22. I missed it (and several others) when they were first posted because I couldn't bring myself to read any more. After a while, EVERYTHING looks like crap.

I know I know I got at least one vote, so I'll consider myself one of the third places.:)

Miss Snark can totally ding this if it's not appropriate, but a ton of people wanted to see the first chapter of number 11 (246)--ghost girl int he hall--and I didn't know a better way to let people know that I have posted it on LJ at this webaddress...http://maprilynne.livejournal.com/

I don't know if anyone else has first chapters posted anywhere, but there are some I would really love to see!

Maybe if you do it again you should give out wristbands, like they do when they sell tickets for big concerts. Yours can be virtual though. Everyone who wants to enter sends you an email and they're numbered as they come in. You draw numbers for fifty people and whoever's number comes up gets to submit their query.

MS, you totally amaze me. I haven't had time to even read through all the pages yet, and you are done and (thank Dog) on to your normal life! (Unfortunately, my dang 8-5 keeps interferring.) Kudos, A ever filled gin pail, and a large box of Godivas to you, if I could figure out where to mail them. (Tried to insert in the cd driver to e-mail, but first chocolate got mushed.) Now, to go back and rewrite my first three chapters......

Thank you to the people who voted for me. I was celebrating my birthday for most of the twelve hours (Does running around the house screaming "Aaaargh! I'm old!" count as celebrating?) and didn't get a chance to rig the voting, dammit. But I agree: Evil-villain-kid rocks. Well done, author.

And, because it can't be said enough: Thanks Miss Snark. You are a goddess for doing this. Or insane. Or an insane goddess who will slay us all in our sleep. Whichever you think fits.

It will always be a valuable resource to the international writing community. Maybe somebody ought to translate it into French and other languages, except I don't know how some of the Snarkisms would work in, say, German.

Miss Snark, I didn't see myself operating a huge contest ten years later after I started P&E, but some of these things just have a mind of their own. I will suggest that you develop some guidelines so you can limit the number of entries to read.

By the way, for anyone who isn't aware, the P&E Readers Poll didn't end on the 14th or 15th. We experienced a late start so it was decided to let the poll continue through to the end of January. So, please, everyone spread the word around. There is a notice verifying that on the New page at P&E should anyone express any doubts.

Well there's no accounting for certain tastes. That's what makes this interesting. If I had a nickle for evey partial and full I've sent out over a number of projects I could buy a decent dinner.

Revising the query is always in vogue at the first whiff of someone not getting it, but if the decision maker doesn't like politics and weather a nature story is going to be a tough sell. Until they lose their house to an "unnatural" catasptrophe.

You ARE a goddess. I live in Australia, and your blog gives daily refreshment to my writerly soul. It is such a shame you are too far away for me to fall at your feet and worship. The COM was a tremendous learning experience.

i don't think i'd read any of these, hooks, pages, any of it. not much for piker ramblings.

i was thinking this morning, would we be okay with some guy deciding one day that he wanted to start practicing medicine? or would we be a little shocked, dismayed, perhaps try to restrain him, until he received the proper training? or would it be enough for him to say, "well, i read a few blogs about surgery. i think i'm up to speed." probably not. why is it any different for writing? because everyone has "innate" ablility, just waiting to be "unleashed" and "recognized"?

i was thinking this morning, would we be okay with some guy deciding one day that he wanted to start practicing medicine? or would we be a little shocked, dismayed, perhaps try to restrain him, until he received the proper training? or would it be enough for him to say, "well, i read a few blogs about surgery. i think i'm up to speed." probably not. why is it any different for writing? because everyone has "innate" ablility, just waiting to be "unleashed" and "recognized"?

1/17/2007

Anon - I don't think anyone here thinks you can become a good writer without a lot of hard graft. I would make a bet that a lot of people on here have aleady spent years practising their writing. I know I have and I also know that I still have lots and lots to learn. Maybe I'll never make the grade, most people don't, but exercises like this one are one more step up the learning curve.

Writing is hardly life threatening, even if it someone thinks it's bad writing. By the way, those medical students (typically fairly clueless at the get go) do work with patients during the clinical portion of their training, so even doctors "train" on the job. I suspect Anon might not have published alot of good writers.

Miss Snark, if I knew how to reach you I'd send you a truckload of godiva chocolates. I've learned tons and even had an agent track me down to request a query!May I suggest that if you ever have enough gin even to think about doing another crapometer that you should do one on first lines of potential novels and only allow one hour to submit? That way, you ought to be able to keep the numbers down under a thousand. I think. Hmmm... maybe you'd better have a LOT of that gin first.Thanks for doing this! You are wonder woman.

Where I come from 'piker' means someone without the guts to follow through on something. Now, I'm assuming you weren't among the '...hooks, pages any of it...' or you're including your own work among that which you wouldn't read. Which means you didn't have the guts to send something. Unlike the 700+ people who sent stuff knowing full well they might get a 'WTF??' That takes courage. Anonymous sniping doesn't. In other words : only one of these is the action of a piker.Kettle, meet pot. I think you have a lot in common.

As for the doctor remark... Now, I'm pretty sure the people who sent thier work didn't think their writing was the best it could be. They'd be querying properly if that were the case. These are people who ARE training themselves in their craft and looking for help from others with more experience. But you seem annoyed that they haven't been well-trained. Somehow you are complaining that people trying to get better at their craft aren't trying to get better at their craft. Hmmm...

I very much doubt that this is the only way people are trying to improve, but when an opportunity exists like the Crapometer, you'd have to be a 'piker' not to take it. In the same way I'm sure many real surgeons DO read and submit to other surgeons blogs but don't rely completely on them. That doesn't mean they miss opportunities to learn things that way.

I'm also tempted to jump on the apparently broken nature of your shift key, but I'll restrain myself.